What Does It Take to Launch an E-Commerce Site? The Women Behind Zady.com Take Us Through the Process

Today marks the launch of Zady, a new e-commerce site specializing in socially responsible and transparently produced fashion and accessories from labels like Clare Vivier, Imogene + Willie, Pendleton, Steven Alan, and Shinola. Behind it are New York–based Soraya Darabi, cofounder of the hot app Foodspotting, and Maxine Bédat, a lawyer and cofounder of the nonprofit The Bootstrap Project, which provides trade to impoverished communities. Vogue.com asked the Zady founders to record the ten days before their big launch. Below, they share their start-up photo diary.

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At the photo shoot for the final fall images. Here, Maxine is at Dune Studios checking her e-mail on her phone and answering more e-mails on her laptop while watching the shoot take place.

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Going through the selects and picking out our favorites—it’s a lot harder than it sounds. We sifted through thousands of images and chose the ones that best embody our brand. We want the photos to be playful and sophisticated.

We like to Citi Bike to work daily and sometimes from our morning breakfast meetings into the office. It’s truly the greatest thing to happen to New York in quite some time.

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Here we are in an inventory review session, checking to see which fall merchandise has arrived and what has yet to come through. The products can’t come in fast enough at this stage.

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Be careful what you wish for. The inventory came in with days to spare. And it’s piling up—fast. Holding inventory in the early days was a crucial decision we made early on. We want our customers to have the best experience possible when ordering from us, which means packages must go out the door as efficiently as orders come in.

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Getting ready to hand-stamp some of our collateral.

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So happy with how the fall shots turned out!

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Soraya’s pup, Pepe, isn’t too thrilled that we’ve been working all weekend instead of playing his favorite game of tug-of-rope. But these final hours are crucial! Our dedicated team is merchandising the entire site, uploading images into our computer platform, editing stories, creating custom designs for our homepage, writing copy for our e-mail newsletters, and setting up our Tumblr blog.

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Back at the office and pulling another late night. We love this photo of our talented designer Anna. She’s starting an impromptu photo collage for the site using a conference room as her studio. #startuplife

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Can’t believe launch day is already tomorrow! When the late nights are behind us, we will celebrate with some rosé. In the meantime, talk to us online. We are @Zady.